Yumika Hayashi - Life and Career

Life and Career

Yumika Hayashi was born Yumika Oguri (小栗 由美香, Oguri Yumika?) in Tokyo on June 27, 1970. Her parents divorced when she was in 5th grade, elementary school, and Hayashi was on her own by the time she was in high school. Hayashi's mother managed a popular ramen chain.

Hayashi made her adult video debut in the bishōjo genre with the June 1989 h.m.p. Miss Christine release, Shigamitsuku 18-sai: ojōsama wa shitanai (しがみつく18歳　お嬢様はしたない?). She made her pink film debut the same year, and her starring debut with the Xces studio release, Double Rape to Break in a Perverted Wild Filly (ダブルレイプ　変態調教?) in October 1990. She became one of the most popular AV Actresses of the 1990s. Several of her early videos were for the V&R Planning studio under the direction of Company Matsuo who was also her lover.

Cult director Hisayasu Satō chose Hayashi for a major role in his 1993 film Real Action: Drink Up!, and continued an association with the actress in several films. In his entry in the Molester's Train series, Molester's Train: Dirty Behavior aka Birthday Hayashi had a role in a film whose "austere tone" was in direct contrast to the light, comic tone of the previous films in the series, started by Academy Award-winner Yōjirō Takita in 1982. In the role of the "gluttonous woman" who eats herself in Satō's Naked Blood (1996) Hayashi performed what Allmovie calls "one of the most appalling scenes in Japanese horror". In 1995, Hayashi played a role in a TBS television series featuring Taro Miyako Nishimura's fictional detective, Inspector Totsukawa, The Izu Coast Road Murder (伊豆海岸殺人ルート, Izu Kaigan Satsujin Ruuto?).

By mid-1996, another V&R Planning director, Katsuyuki Hirano (who was married) had replaced Company Matsuo as Hayashi's lover and the two of them traveled to the north of Japan in July 2006 on a bike trip. Hirano produced an AV version of their trip titled Tokyo - Rebun 41-day Adultery Bicycle Touring Trip and later in 1997 edited a mainstream documentary on the trip entitled Yumika. Hayashi received credit for the shooting of the film, and Hirano was Hayashi's co-star. In 1998, she was again working in television in the NHK TV drama Blue Fireworks (青い花火 or Aoi Hanabi) broadcast on November 28, 1998. Hayashi also appeared in director Yōichirō Takahashi's drama Nichiyōbi wa Owaranai (日曜日は終わらない) which originally aired on NHK TV as a High-Definition satellite TV broadcast on October 21, 1999. It was subsequently shown as Sunday's Dream (1999) at the 53rd Cannes Film Festival, and won the FIPRESCI Prize at the Chicago International Film Festival. In their review of the film, midnighteye.com commented, "The big surprise is that former porn star Yumika Hayashi is also very good as the happy-go-lucky Sachiko".

As one of the top erotic actresses of her day, Hayashi was invited to the Cinequint theater in Shibuya to speak at a woman's-only night showing of pink films in March 2002. Similar events had attracted a large audience of young women. On the subject of women viewing her films, Hayashi told the weekly Shūkan Bunshun, "To be honest, I've never really thought about whether my movies were being watched by men or women. We always presume that only guys are going to turn them on... Still, this'll be a great chance for girls to get to know about the porno movie industry. I think the most enjoyable part of the night is going to be the questions asked after the films are over. I wonder what the girls are going to ask me?"

At the 17th Pink Grand Prix awards, for the year of 2004, Hayashi won the "Best Actress" award for her performance in Lunch Box aka Mature Woman: Rutting Ball-Play (熟女・発情　タマしゃぶり, Jukujō: hatsujō tamashaburi?). Hayashi's prolific career earned her a reputation as a "iron woman" of Japanese erotic cinema, and after her death, the weekly Shūkan Taishū wrote that Hayashi's 180 filmed appearances deserved mention in the Guinness World Records. At the Pink Grand Prix for 2005 she was given a special Career Award for Achievement as an Actress.